This past weekend was incredibly busy—late flights, early mornings, and long days. Yellow Mountain is not easy to get to. We took a flight on Friday night to Tunxi (pronounced toon-she) and stayed at one of the newest hotels in the area. It reminded us of Vegas as there were many bright lights and even a laser show (I don’t think it came through on my video). We arrived at the hotel about 11 PM and departed for Huangshan (pronounced hwong-shun) early the next morning. It was about 1 ½ hours by bus, then we took a cable car to the top of the mountain (about a 15-minute ride). Then we had to walk about 45 minutes up and down MANY stairs to get to the hotel. I’m sure you’re anticipating my reports of amazing views and beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, the weather was horrible. It was extremely cloudy and rainy during our stay and we unfortunately didn’t get many pictures. The sky cleared up for literally 2 minutes, but by the time many of us got out to the overlook, the clouds were back. Many students had hoped that on their hike through the forest they would see a monkey, which are indigenous to the mountains. No such luck. We woke up at 3:45 AM, hoping to watch the sunrise and unfortunately it was still too cloudy and rainy. Given the challenges we faced, we all still had a very enjoyable time. It’s all what you make of it, right? What we could see was beautiful. And the scenery to and from the mountain was gorgeous. There is no access to the top of the mountain via roads, so porters carry all supplies up the mountain—the cable cars are not used for this feat. It is amazing to watch them do this.
Upon leaving the mountain, we stopped at a small village where some scenes from the movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, were filmed. We had lunch a local restaurant and it was delicious. After that, we headed back to Tunxi, walked around a market area for a while, had dinner and then off to the airport. Our flight to Shanghai (pronounced shong-high) was at 10:15 PM, so we didn’t get to our rooms until about midnight. Today, we are off to sightsee – I should have much to post after today’s excursion!
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